Strengthening Whole-of-School Physical Activity Models to Promote Physical Literacy: Moving Beyond a Component Approach

Abstract

Whole-of-school approaches to physical activity and health promotion have the potential to promote physical literacy. However, for a variety of reasons there has not been widespread adoption of component whole-of-school frameworks to guide schools, such as the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program. We argue that component frameworks have shortcomings and do not necessarily assist or support schools to take an approach that is consistent with how successful whole-of-school models or programs are created and built over time. In this paper, we argue that we need to apply guidance that resonates with stakeholders and stimulates schools to design their own unique whole-of-school physical activity model to provide equitable programming opportunities. We also present an argument on the need to incorporate improvement science and the use of social–ecological models to investigate the efficacy of this guidance model.